


keep you (keep me please)

by HearJessRoar



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV 2020)
Genre: Established Relationship, Flower Crowns, Fluff, M/M, mildly introspective, soft spring days are good for doing nothing with your ghost bf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 23:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30063471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HearJessRoar/pseuds/HearJessRoar
Summary: The grass prickles under his back as he shifts again, sticking him through the fabric of his shirt. Alex drops the dandelion crown unceremoniously across Willie’s brow and he opens both eyes this time to find yellow petals obscuring his vision.
Relationships: Alex Mercer/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 122





	keep you (keep me please)

Soft yellow dandelion petals brush down the length of Willie’s nose, and eyes still closed, he scrunches it up in annoyance.

“Quit it,” he bats at Alex’s hand and shifts, trying to get comfortable again. Alex laughs, shaking Willie’s head where he’s using Alex’s thigh as a pillow. The gentle tugging on Willie’s hair tells him that Alex has woven that dandelion into the strands to join its mates.

“I’m gonna look like a wood elf when you get done here,” he murmurs, rolling his head to the side to crack one eye open at Alex. The dandelions in his hair move with him, and he’s sure there’s at least five braided around his head.

The sun is high in the sky, warm and bright and dappling down through the branches above their heads, the shadows cool and purple and just the right side of chilly to keep the California heat at bay this afternoon.

They aren’t the only ones in the park, but Willie isn’t able to focus on anyone but Alex.

Alex’s hands are busy again, working on weaving a dandelion crown. The grassy scent of the broken stems from where he’s wrapped them around each other is familiar and comforting and washes out his brain in the memory of summer days long gone. Of riding his bike without using the handlebars and the cheap popsicles his mom kept in the freezer and watching MTV with the porch door open and the fan on because they couldn’t afford what air conditioning would do to their electric bill but like hell was his mom gonna give up cable.

He closes his eyes again, breathes deeply through his nose, and sighs contentedly.

Alex has him thinking about things that haven’t crossed his mind in decades.

Without something to ground him to the passage of time for so many years, he’d been a little worried that those things were gone forever. And even when he’d joined the club and time had stopped skipping along like rocks on a pond, it still just kept moving relentlessly forward until he’d crashed headfirst into Alex and Willie swears on his afterlife that he physically felt time slow down the second their eyes met on that street crowded with oblivious lifers.

Talk about being tethered back to himself, meeting Alex had been like...like he’d been drowning and didn’t know it until he was shoved out of the water. Sharp and razor clear and a little bit painful with how sudden it had been.

Willie doesn’t believe that people are missing pieces and that someone else can fill that void for them. He’s always thought that was garbage drummed up by sappy movies meant to trick people into feeling bad about themselves.

So no, he doesn’t think that Alex is his missing piece, or his other half, or any of the crap that people try to push.

But he does believe that he’s _something_ , something important. A whole person to go with his own whole person, hand in hand with fingers interlaced, _by choice_. A conscious effort on both their parts to say, _hey, you’re important, wanna stick around?_

And isn’t that better anyway?

Another tug on his hair pulls Willie out of his thoughts, Alex finding another dandelion too short for his crown and tucking it into the tiny braids he’s woven into Willie’s hair instead.

The grass prickles under his back as he shifts again, sticking him through the fabric of his shirt. Alex drops the dandelion crown unceremoniously across Willie’s brow and he opens both eyes this time to find yellow petals obscuring his vision.

Alex giggles again as Willie flicks the crown to rest where it should, over his forehead.

“How’d you learn to make these, anyway?” he asks, bringing his hand up to absently tangle his fingers with Alex’s hoodie string. Alex shrugs.

“My sister saw them in a movie when we were kids and she wanted one. So I learned,” he rolls his eyes, looking suddenly fond. “And I never forgot because Reggie wanted them, too.”

“Hm. Man of many talents,” Willie teases, tipping his head back to look up at him. The crown slides off his head and into Alex’s lap, but neither of them reach for it.

Alex grins down at him, leaning over to press a kiss to Willie’s forehead. “ _So_ talented,” he says, his voice sarcastically amused as his lips brush lightly against Willie’s skin. “I can do origami frogs too.”

Willie lets go of the hoodie string to draw Alex where he wants him, fingers carding through the short hair at the back of Alex’s head while he pulls him down. It’s a sideways and awkward angle for a kiss, but neither of them mind, if the way that Alex’s hand comes up to brush Willie’s cheekbone is any indication.

They pull away, and Alex sighs, leaning back against the rough bark of the tree they’ve camped out under for the afternoon.

“We’re being so lazy today,” He says. “Luke wanted me to go over some new song with him, but I told him I had plans.”

Willie raises an eyebrow. “Doing nothing _is_ plans.”

Alex drops the crown back over Willie’s head. “Sure,” he says, smile in his voice.

And it strikes a chord in Willie’s soul, setting off something warm in his chest, the fondness and the comfort tucked away in Alex’s relaxed demeanor. He’s different from the anxious mess that Willie had run over on the sidewalk, that wound-too-tight set of his shoulders falling away even as he yelled at Willie the first time they met. And while he knows that Alex _is_ still that guy, still has that anxiety and worry broiling in his chest nearly all the time, he’s a little hopeful that even after everything, he might be a little bit of a help towards soothing it.

He’s so consumed by the thought that he nearly jumps when Alex’s callused fingers ghost over his face.

“You keep trying to fall asleep on me,” he says.

“Ghosts don’t sleep,” Willie murmurs, but even as he says it, he does have to admit he’s been close to dozing off.

“We all know you don’t like to follow rules, dude,” Alex says, resting his hand over Willie’s heart. “Leave it to you to break ghost laws. Criminal.”

Willie snorts. “I’m _your_ criminal,” he says, his voice sounding sleepy even to his own ears, and he feels like he should be embarrassed because okay, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense and also they’re still pretty new to this whole dating thing and he probably shouldn’t be declaring himself to be Alex’s _anything_ , but whatever, it’s out there, and he’s about to fall asleep for the first time since 1987.

Alex’s fingers combing through his hair and resituating the dandelions he’s already placed there are so relaxing and he just. He really can’t help it that he does nod off.

And he does so with the comforting thought that he knows Alex will be there when he wakes up again.

**Author's Note:**

> i had an image in my head and a spare hour pls i hope you enjoy i've done no editing once again
> 
> they're soft your honor
> 
> comment?


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